A hidden gem, named after a San Franciscan icon, offers spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean.

This grinning pup statue is all that's left of what was once a ubiquitous Bay Area diner chain.

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

A giant statue perched on dumpsters watches over the freeway.

Life in this isolated, hilltop lighthouse was lonely, but it sure was lovely.

This stretch of beach along California's central coast is a busy highway for the largest seal in the northern hemisphere.

The unbelievably opulent home built for an infamous newspaperman.

The most beautiful Taco Bell in the world even has surfboard parking.

Nursery with extensive collection of flesh-eating plants operated by the author of "The Savage Garden."

The lighthouse central to the 1980s horror classic "The Fog" is, in fact, located in one of the foggiest areas of the Pacific Coast.

Beneath the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge is the “Gibraltar of the West Coast,” a fort built to protect the San Francisco Bay from naval attack.

Internationally-recognized arts center housed in a century-old former military barracks.

Concrete strongholds stand guard over the Golden Gate.

This lighthouse has been guiding shipping into the Golden Gate since before the American Civil War.

Small Nevada town embraced its designation as the "Armpit of America" with an Old Spice-sponsored festival.

An ill-fated attempt to grow wheat in the sagebrush steppe of northeastern Nevada.

These falls, sometimes called the "Niagara of the West," still put on a good show at the right time of year.

Where the famed daredevil attempted to launch himself across a canyon in a custom-built rocket.

At the time of its completion, it was the tallest dam in the world.

The largest hot spring in the United States is, as the name suggests, a stunning show of natural color.

A beautiful geyser under environmental threat.

One of nature's most well-scheduled phenomenons resides in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park.

This Yellowstone geyser may not shoot as high as the nearby Old Faithful, but it erupts for considerably longer.